Consequences
by NeoVenus22
Summary: The characters of Dogma face the consequences after it's all over, probably with angsty prose because I never write anything serious.
1. Loki

Another Dogma thing. This one's serious. My ultimate goal is to have a post [-Dogma events] piece for every character, let's see how far that goes.  
Please R/R.  
  
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, and you should be smart enough to realize that by now.  
  
***  
  
Pain is a funny thing.  
  
For example...you could have a chasm of a wound, gushing blood like a squirt bottle, and sometimes, if you don't realize it's there, you don't notice it. I once read about this woman who went grocery shopping one day and then came home without ever realizing that she had a knife plunged deeply into her neck. It's inexplicable, kind of impressive in a macabre way, that you'd never notice that sort of thing. But when you finally *do* notice the wound, the pain is immeasurable. Overpowering.  
  
Another kind of pain is the embarrassing little kind that comes from hitting your shin against the table, or stabbing yourself with a pin while sewing, or biting your tongue or the inside of your cheek while talking or chewing. It's not so much the pain, although it does sting more than it ought to, but the humiliation for feeling any pain at that simple little wound.  
  
There are other kinds of physical pains, lots others. Some of which are so incredible that no one could ever begin to understand them. No human, at least.  
  
Like wings.  
  
If you had wings...oh, God, if you had wings, you'd be on Cloud Nine, figuratively and literally. They're the most brilliant and most wonderful of God's creation, let me tell you. To soar free, without a care in the world, your body the emperor of the skies when its prime function is to be a prisoner of the land...it's amazing. I could wax poetic for hours on end about the gargantuan joy that flying provides, because I think it's the most wonderful thing imaginable. But like everything, for every pro, there is a con. And for every subtle nuance that you can take for granted, you cherish and miss desperately when you lose it, a nail in the coffin of your soul.  
  
My wings were cut off. It hurts to say that, to even think that, because they were as much a part of me as any other limb, but it hurts on an emotional plane, too. To have my wings cut off was degrading, to say the least. I was an angel; an exalted one. (A fallen angel, yes, but a celestial being all the same, no one could deny that.) I was one of the Heavenly choirs, kneeling on the bitterly cold pavement, in front of a church, for Christ's sake, while my best friend shot at me a few times --with my own gun-- then carving into me like I was a damned turkey dinner. I still shudder thinking about it. The stumps are gone now, bloody, pitiful, painful, ragged fragments of flesh and bone and feather when they existed, but the scars, two diagonal flesh wounds, remain, pinkish and stark against my skin.  
  
But physical pain, and I speak from the truest of experience when I preach, no matter how great, no matter how extreme, no matter how much you scream and cry and beg for death, is simply no match, no comparison for emotional turmoil.  
  
It's been years. I could give you the exact day it happened. Time passes so quickly when you're immortal; decades are like days, days like minutes, hours like mere blinks in the face of time. When you're human --alive, dead, it doesn't matter-- the time is agonizingly slow. Like God is just standing over your head, swinging a stopwatch, taunting you cruelly.  
  
I still remember every detail. It plagues me every time I close my eyes. I'd lived through it in a drunken haze, cloudy and uncertain, but every time I reflected on it, it was a crystal clear vision, a fact that makes it all the more painful to recall.  
  
Bartleby was smiling at me. I could see in that smile the old Bartleby, the one I knew, the one I was friends with, the one I'd spent eons with and would spend the rest of eternity hanging around with. The new, crazy, vengeful Bartleby didn't exist at that moment, merely a shadow in my mind. I convinced myself then that in that second, scary Bartleby didn't exist.  
  
I smiled back at him, albeit shakily. His face doubled before my eyes, then slowly settled back into one as I tried to sober up. He was talking to them; I could only make out every other word or so. Talking to her, Bethany, the Scion --the one he hated. He was talking to her, but he was looking straight at me. Smiling at me like an old friend would --and had. Touching me slightly. His hands were warm and intimate on my skin as they touched my arm, my shoulder, my back, the back of my neck, all in rapid and confused succession. He leaned in, his forehead pressed to mine, talking in a nice, soothing voice. I had always been an awful drunk; couldn't handle alcohol at all. I was tipsy at that moment, unaware, uncaring of anything but that vision of Bartleby only I saw; the one lurking behind, within, the Bartleby standing before me.  
  
And then with explosive power, there was heat pooling at my side. I felt for it, touched the source, and my hand came away, warm with pain, sticky with blood, fresh blood. My own blood, mingling slightly with dried trails of those we'd killed earlier. As every nerve ignited with pain like I'd never felt before, my mind sobered up just in time to realize that he'd gutted me.  
  
Bartleby.  
  
My best friend; my only friend.  
  
My partner.  
  
My soul mate.  
  
He had deliberately stabbed me. He knew what he was doing, he knew what it would do to me, and he had *done it anyway*.  
  
I could have called for help. They would have helped. The apostle, the muse, the Scion, even the prophets. They would have helped. They were good people, good souls, who couldn't bear to see a senseless death such as mine. But this brutal murder, as the torrents of pain declared it, was as surprising to them as it was to me. Probably Bartleby hadn't even planned it. In their eyes, though I was still just barely standing, I was already dead.  
  
So I did not call for help. Not out loud, at least. In my mind, as the colors blurred together and faded into blackness, I summoned enough strength to do the only thing that made sense, and I apologized, feebly but sincerely, to Him.  
  
And I fell.  
  
Everything past that was hazy in my memory. My angel body, once that didn't know pain or blood or wounds, had been immaculate, perfect. My human body lived on, holding the same svelte shape, the same angelic features. The bright blue eyes, as blue as Heaven's skies. The halo of dirty blond hair, once lit and made golden by a real halo, one they would hide when I went on missions, one they'd taken away forever when I'd first been sent to Earth. Physically, I was the Aryan poster boy. What people conjured in their minds when they thought of angels. Everything was the way it'd always been, except now with human features. Genitals, as finely tuned as Adam's had been, and a digestive system, though both were currently of no use. Then of course were the scars. Three scars; three permanent, disfiguring, but easily hidden scars. Two for wings, one for memories.  
  
I was in Heaven now. I was an outcast here, not quite angel, not quite human. A human with an angel's past; an angel with a human's body. My old friends, if you could call them that, were friendly enough, but wary all the same. In short, I was a pariah.  
  
Bartleby was elsewhere. Waiting outside, waiting forever. The eternity that he had imposed upon us both unjustly, but that I had somehow saved myself from, leaving him to face it alone. He'd been right about one thing. Humans did have consciences. That was how I'd come to be here. Because my death had been unjust, and in the short-lived course of my humanity, I'd been utterly sinless.  
  
I thought of visiting him. Multiple times a day, an obsession, I thought of dropping by, saying hello, maybe even telling him I forgave him. I toyed with the notion at length. At first I hadn't been sure he was worthy of my forgiveness. But I hadn't thought I'd been worthy of God's forgiveness, either, and yet here I was.  
  
Someday I'd go over. Someday, I'd poke my head through the Gates and say hi. Maybe I'd even sit and commiserate. He was my soul mate, after all. And no one had more confused and elaborate souls than we did.  
  
First there would need to be time to heal. 


	2. Bartleby

Bartleby does his angsty thang.  
  
Disclaimer: this doesn't belong to me. None of it. No duh.  
  
***  
  
We're opposites. We were created to compliment each other, to balance. To play off each other's weaknesses and strengths. But in my heart, deep down in my soul, I knew, I always *knew*, that Loki was His favorite.  
  
Loki, by physical appearance, was the definition of angelic. A face that remained boyish no matter what the age, a countenance that when graced with a smile or a laugh, lit up and always, always, *always* made you feel like everything was going to be okay. Beautiful, lustrous golden hair. Eyes as blue as the sky, as the ocean, as blue as anything I'd ever seen. His gaze was hardened by his past, and in those eyes continuously lurked an infinite sadness that came from his seperation from the Almighty.  
  
When they, the other angels, spoke of Loki, it was always with mild distaste. Few of them were friends with the two of us. In spite of this, more likely because of it, he and I had forged a bond that would last us for eternity. Because when I first met him, when I first saw him, I saw something glistening and golden lurking behind that tough-as-nails, take-no-mercy, Angel of Death facade.  
  
While Loki was by no means diminutive, compared to me...let's just say that people more often than not assumed I was the Angel of Death. I was a good head taller than him, and while he was blond-haired and blue-eyed, I possessed a mottled brown color in both aspects, which, combined with my height and build, made me out to be the Devil in disguise. Then they learned that Loki was the cruel, hardened one, and I was merely his companion. Quiet, a reader, overly sympathetic to humanity.  
  
I still remember the night everything changed. Loki had finished an impressive slaughter, one that was destined to go down in history books, make him an idol among mass murderers. Loki cared nothing for fame. Another false impression that angels got from him was that he adored his work. That he ate, drank, slept, breathed death. He was the Grim Reaper before the Grim Reaper came to be. I was the only one other than God who had ever bothered to get to know Loki, to really get to know him. And not just because I was his partner or his soul mate. Because of that light I told you about. That inner light that just resonated something that you'd never expect. And I saw that in him, every day, making itself known as that saddened, glassy expression he often wore after a long day at work.  
  
I saw this in him that night we went for celebratory drinks. They were under the guise of celebrating his success, but he and I both knew, though we never voiced it and I doubt he was aware that I knew it, these drinks were in celebration of the job merely being *done*. If we were lucky, we'd get wasted enough to forget altogether.  
  
As the night wore on, the band got worse, the crowd got more boisterous, and he and I got increasingly more drunk. Finally, I imposed upon him a thought that had been plaguing me for quite some time. I suggested he leave his job, and after a moment of drunken thought, he agreed. What happened after that was history-making, as it screwed over all parties involved. The angels, for starters, were pissed that we'd lost them drinking privileges.  
  
I ignored this all. Their opinions meant nothing to me. They meant nothing to me. I was as much of a loner as he was, based solely on my association with him. Before my partnership with Loki, I was as popular as the next seraphim. But like I said, no one ever really bothered to get to know Loki. In their celestial eyes, he was His favorite, and past that, nothing mattered.  
  
Nothing mattered to me when we got cast out. I was numb with shock; my only solace was Loki's eternal presence. We had our fights, but at the same time we had our brotherly moments. We were black and white. Yin and yang. We were soul mates. Created for each other, destined to be together forever. In the end, we even died together.  
  
I hadn't wanted to kill Loki. More than anything else about that whole escapade, that is the one thing I truly regret. Killing Loki was the same as killing myself. It was extinguishing what was left of my immortality, even though my wings were still in tact. Loki was my soul. And in bringing his death, I sealed my fate as someone of unspeakable horrors. I was the angelic equivalent of Cain, was what I was.  
  
These days, I get nightmares. It's hard to believe. But in death, you even get sleep. The goal of God was to create Afterlife to be almost if not equal to Life. So you had food, you had drink, you had sleep, just without the sickness and suffering you might have known in Life. When I slept, again and again his tortured face loomed in front of me, wearing an expression of pain and confusion and loss that I had carved into him. In my dream, he moaned out my name, whispered it well into his death, his voice more tortured than his face, and not from physical pain.  
  
I wake in a cold sweat, sometimes crying, sometimes screaming, all times begging for mercy. I don't mind being out here; I got more than my fair share of mercy from God. I want mercy from Loki. I ache for the forgiveness I don't deserve. I'd do anything just to see him again. I'm so sorry, Loki. I'd give myself life again, and take it away again, and again and again and again, if only to prove the depths of my sorrow.  
  
But I'm the angel that knows forgiveness. He's the Angel of Death, I'm only a Watcher. He speaks in vengeance, and I speak in regret. 


End file.
